Major John Poyntz
“A man of great charm and decency, and with an almost legendary status”
The long-serving railway inspector remembered
An extraordinary life serving military railways and Her Majesty’s Railway Inspectorate.
Britain’s railway movement is mourning one of its most influential and charismatic figures, after the death of John Poyntz at the age of 82. Major Poyntz, who died on November 2 of cancer, was for years the main contact for heritage lines at Her Majesty’s Railway Inspectorate. He took over from Major Peter Olver in 1989 – straight from the Royal Corps of Transport, where he had been in charge of the Army’s railway operations in Germany.
While at HMRI, he was responsible for, among other things, signing off new works on preserved lines, such as giving approval for the reopening of Midsomer Norton in Somerset.
Dealings with steam railways were just a part of his activity at the inspectorate: as accident officer, Poyntz was on 24-hour standby and the first point of contact for some of the UK’s most serious railway incidents in recent years, including Southall, Ladbroke Grove and Hatfield. He continued to hold that role until after the Great Heck derailment of 2001.
However, his memory of railway accidents went back much further: in 1952, aged 14, John Poyntz and his family made a trip from South London to see the aftermath of Britain’s worst peacetime crash, the double collision at Harrow & Wealdstone that killed 112. He would later tell friends of his memories of looking over the parapet of the adjacent road bridge.
Born on May 27 1938 in Hammersmith, John David Pierrepont Poyntz came from a military family – an ancestor had been a general in the Parliamentary Army during the English Civil War
– and he himself would join the Royal Engineers in 1955. He worked his way up through the ranks to Warrant Officer before, by now in the Royal Corps of Transport, he gained a commission in 1975. The man who had been nicknamed ‘Monty’ by Army colleagues – supposedly owing to a resemblance to the famous Field Marshal – became a Major in 1983.
Railways would be just a part of army life that over nearly 35 years would take him around the world: other activities included hovercraft and landing craft, and he spent periods in both Borneo and Cyprus. However it was his time at the Longmoor Military Railway (which, with breaks, stretched from 1955 to 1969) that would perhaps prove the most influential on his future career.
While at Longmoor, Poyntz witnessed the worst peacetime accident on a military railway, when ‘8F’ No. WD512 passed a signal at danger in fog during October 1956. The resulting head-on collision with a diesel shunter-hauled train killed six.
More lightheartedly, he was on duty during the making of the 1966 film The Great St Trinian’s Train Robbery – and is also credited with the fastest traverse of part of the system, at the regulator of ‘WD’ 2-10-0 No. 601 Kitchener.
Later, as the Cold War approached its climax, Poyntz would become OC of the RCT’s 79 Railway Squadron’s operations for the British Army of the Rhine. As well as internal railways in depots such as at Mönchengladbach, this included operating on West Germany’s main line network, and Poyntz held the title of ‘Eisenbahnbetriebsleiter’, an officially recognised position equating to operations manager.
Activities included preparing for the Army to take over control from the Deutsche Bundesbahn and ensure access to Berlin in case of Warsaw Pact aggression – and soldiers regularly drove DB locomotives under supervision. They also undertook technical courses on the motive power of choice, DB’s diesel-hydraulics.
Train for life
Poyntz retired from the Army just months before the fall of the Berlin Wall, but his time in Germany has an enduring memorial: ex-BAOR ‘V36’ 0-6-0 diesel No. 36274 Poyntz was gifted into preservation in 1997 and
can today be found at the museum shed in Arnstadt, Thuringia.
The period also gave him a passion for German railways, and he continued to be a frequent visitor long into retirement, being present for many significant preservation moments, such as the commemorative 100mph run by ‘Pacific’ No. 18.201 in 2011.
His background also led to his involvement in two extraordinary events led by former BR Southern Region PR man Neil Howard: the ‘Train for Life’ that took aid from the UK via Germany to Kosovo hauled by Class 20s in 1999; and 2012’s steamhauled re-creation of an operation very familiar to Poyntz – the British Military Train that once served West Berlin, and whose vehicles were on the 79 Railway Squadron books.
Despite a deep knowledge of history, his interest in railways was far from being only about the past; Poyntz was a regular attendee at Berlin’s huge
POYNTZ COULD OFTEN TURN UNEXPECTED SITUATIONS TO ADVANTAGE
biennial trade show InnoTrans, usually accompanied by like-minded colleagues from the UK scene. Such trips also gave the chance for further sorties and Poyntz could claim to have ticked off not only all of eastern Germany’s regular narrow gauge steam lines, but all the region’s tramways as well.
Known as a man of great charm and decency, and with an almost legendary status among colleagues, Poyntz could often turn unexpected situations to advantage. One such was when he was accosted by the boss of Magdeburg’s tramway while inspecting some trackwork, only to end up being given a (supervised) drive of a tram!
While at the RI, Poyntz had quickly taken it upon himself to become the organisation’s unofficial librarian and historian, in addition to his ‘day job’. This remained the case after his retirement – he both contributed the foreword and conducted much of the picture research for the definitive history A New Illustrated History of Her Majesty’s Railway Inspectorate from 1840, published in 2019 (see page 93).
By that stage Poyntz had been retired from full-time employment for 13 years; he left in 2006 as principal inspector on the approach to his 68th birthday, although he remained as an HMRI consultant until 2014. He was by that stage the last of ‘the Majors’ – an unbroken line of engineers who had joined the inspectorate straight from Army service ever since the 1840s.
He leaves behind his wife Ann and a daughter.
●● With thanks to former HMRI deputy chief inspector David Keay for assistance in compiling this obituary. Tributes to John Poyntz will be carried in a future issue.